Men's Social Integration after Incarceration: The Role of Organizationally Embedded Prison-Forged Networks

Research shows that social ties and social support are central to former prisoners' social integration; however, most scholarship focuses on family ties. Beyond family ties, we know little about the composition of former prisoners' personal networks or how non-family ties may form and influence social integration. This article investigates in detail the personal networks of a group of male former prisoners and documents how they use their social ties during the transition into the community. In addition to family, many men were networked with others with whom they had formed relationships in prison. In contrast to criminological research on criminal peers, this study finds that networks formed through participation in prison programs operated by community-based organizations were prosocial and endured into the men's release into the community. These organizationally embedded prison-forged networks gave transitioning men access to and impelled activation of forms of social capital in free society. These findings suggest scholars and policymakers should use care in defining what a criminal peer is and that parole policies forbidding parolees from associating with others who have criminal records may in some cases do more harm than good.